6 Songs

I bought and traded a ridiculous number of records the other day, but the one I was secretly the most excited about was probably this one. Orbitcinta Benjamin have put out nothing but gold over the last few years, starting with their 2006 demo. Since then they had two songs (one rerecorded from the demo) on the Connections split that Moment Of Collapse put out and a thirty second song on the Emo Apocalyspe LP. Recordings and releases have hence been pretty rare; that's 6 quickfire songs in 3 years, but the quality has been generally outstanding. Hence to see that the band were releasing another 6 songs was a joy to behold. They contain members of Utarid (not sure how many at this point; there have been a lot of line up changes), the only Malaysian band to make it to Europe (sadly a year before my screamo adventures began) and a clear pioneer to the whole Malysian screamo scene. They didn't so much push the boundaries of screamo, but they did take the sound of the time and make it their own, influencing all subsequent bands of this type in the country and beyond. There's definitely a lot of euro skramz influences in their music, more so than bands like Orchid.

What it now seems to me is that within this framework a few Malaysian bands are really nailing this sound, and Orbitcinta are up there without a doubt - I'd say they have made my favourite songs out of any Malaysian band. To anyone who has listened to a lot of euro stuff and are bored of it you might not find this particularly interesting and maybe generic. But I'm pretty sure that anyone still into that sound will absolutely love this. The CD occupies 9 minutes, mainly quick and fast octave chord bursts. Subtle lyrics that seem fairly personal in nature. Not overly harsh but feelings of passion are felt. My harshest criticism is that these songs are not quite at the same level as the two from the Connections split and the amazing 'Stereo.Stereo.Stereo' from the demo. But they are not far off. The final song 'Threat This, Majority' is my favourite. This lasts for three minutes and gives the band more time to create some amazing build ups and changes in tempo which I think is their strong point. Screams, nice riffs, fast spoken desperation then scream some more, with numerous members joining in at the end. Great stuff.

Definitely recommended to anyone who is still in love with the modern chaotic emo sound. This was put out by Deaf At Twenty Two records who I cannot find any info about at all.